


Somniphobia

by thisprettywren



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drugs, Gen, Phobias, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisprettywren/pseuds/thisprettywren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has always been a bit of an insomniac.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somniphobia

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: A fill for [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5564.html?thread=19566268#t19566268) on **sherlockbbc_fic** : _"...it shouldn't be normal, should it? Sleep, I mean. One minute you're thinking, your brain's whirring, you're in complete control of all your mental faculties...and the next, you're lost, untethered, unaware and unprotected from everything around you. Just try to imagine it. Try to imagine that in three minutes from now, all your thoughts will just stop, and you'll be completely helpless and vulnerable. You can't. You wouldn't want to. I don't want to. I dread it, every night, and stave it off as long as I can. It fucking terrifies me."_
> 
> Un-beta'd/britpicked. Comments and concrit are welcome and encouraged!

There must have been a time when Sherlock wasn’t afraid of sleep, logically speaking. He just couldn’t remember it. Or, at least, he couldn’t recapture that feeling. He could remember how it started. Of course he could.  _That_ feeling was always accessible, right on the surface of his consciousness.

He’d always been a bit of an insomniac, one of those children who just couldn’t quite seem to settle his mind enough to let it shut off at night, always getting in trouble for trying to read with a torch under the covers. He was doing just that one night when, an hour or two after midnight, he decided he needed a glass of water and padded down to the kitchen to discover Mummy sitting at the table with a mug of coffee, papers fanned out in front of her.

“You’re awake,” he said in surprise, unaccustomed to encountering anyone else in his occasional nocturnal wanderings.

Mummy pushed back the chair and gave him a tired smile. “Just finishing up a few things,” she said with a yawn. “Plenty of time to sleep when we’re dead, right?”

It was just the sort of thing people say as a joke. Sherlock realized that almost immediately, but the damage was done. The association had been firmly established in his mind, and his mind could occasionally be quite  _stubborn_ about things.

He knew it shouldn’t scare him, that it wasn’t rational. Knowing that it was a matter of tautology— that phobias were irrational  _by definition—_ didn’t help. Some nights, as an adult, he’d sit on the sofa and pluck his violin, trying to ignore the grittiness in his eyes and picturing John slumbering in his bed upstairs. He’d imagine the scene multiplied, all the darkened windows throughout London with all their sleeping inhabitants.  _Like coffins,_ he’d think. Without him awake as witness, they’d all simply cease to be, slip into the darkness together. A chill would settle at the base of his spine at the image, and he’d pour another mug of coffee.

The thought of his own brain, whirring away one moment and the next just  _not_  nauseated him. His imagination, usually so vivid, simply overloaded at the thought of its own nonexistence. Evenings were the worst. He’d poke at his dinner, feeling his stomach roil at the thought of night drawing down around him, and eventually just push the plate away. It didn’t take long for him to discover that the pain of hunger pangs helped him stay awake, that having an empty system made the stimulants more effective. Another tool in his arsenal, then, to combat the darkness.

The morphine helped, a little. Sherlock had never liked what it did to his brain (preferred cocaine when he was working; preferred work, most of all, as an excuse for wakefulness), but it  _did_ let him sleep occasionally. Morphine softened his thoughts, slowed them down, made the contrast between  _awake_ and  _asleep_ a little less stark. Sometimes with the morphine he could feel the curtain of sleep drifting down gently without the rising sense of panic. Sometimes.

They’d been a week without a case. Sherlock hadn’t slept in four nights and was starting to feel his thought processes fray around the edges, both from the sleep deprivation itself and from the clawing dread in his stomach at the thought that his body would, eventually, rebel against him, hurtling his brain into that dreadful, uncontrollable  _nothingness_. If a case came now he’d be sluggish, worse than useless,  _slow_ like the rest of them. Sherlock knew he needed to do something, the certainty of it squeezed on all sides by fear.

The anxiety was distracting, which was why he didn’t hear John make his way downstairs a little after 3 am. At the worst possible moment, of course; just in time to find Sherlock trying to inject himself, shaking fingers attempting to align the needle against his skin. Morphine this time ( _get it over with get it over with get it over with_ ). The less destructive of the two options, really, though he knew John wouldn’t see it that way.

He sensed John’s presence just in time to pull the needle away from his skin before it was snatched from his grasp. His hands were trembling; John’s were steady. John was so very much more  _present_ in the room than Sherlock at that moment, hair tousled and smelling of his own sleeping body, his anger seeming to radiate out from his body and lending him a physicality that Sherlock found almost overwhelming.

John wasn’t speaking, just staring, his features set. The needle was still clenched in his hand and Sherlock fought not to look at it, tried to control his own hands and fight back the feeling that he was about to slip into incorporeality at any moment. Finally, after several long minutes, John took a deep breath and sat heavily in the armchair. He balanced his elbow on his knee, holding the syringe in such a way that its presence couldn’t be denied, but not actually looking at it himself.

“I’m not—“ John began, stopped himself, tried again. “Explain yourself.”

Sherlock pressed his lips together and shook his head. He didn’t even know where to begin with this, was almost embarrassed now that John was confronting him.  _It’s a basic physiological requirement,_ he told himself for the millionth time,  _and it is therefore_ irrational  _to harbour these silly—_

John was speaking, Sherlock realized belatedly. “—know you haven’t been sleeping; no bloody wonder if you’re using again.”

“Not cocaine,” Sherlock muttered, and John’s forehead creased in puzzlement. “It’s… no, I haven’t been sleeping. That’s what I’m trying to— it’s morphine.” He cleared his throat and waited.

John’s eyes were holding his, steadily. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m  _tired,_ ” Sherlock said, shocked to hear the admission come out of his own mouth.

“Look, if you can’t sleep, I could write you a prescription for—“

Sherlock shook his head violently. He’d tried the usual sleep aids, of course. How could he explain to John that that was worse, that those just shut down his body while his brain continued to whirr along, helpless against the panic as his limbs grew increasingly heavy, were dragged down? It was a feeling worse than any of the other options. “I can’t,” was all he could say. His voice was low and choked-sounding.

John was looking at him more intently by this time. “How long has this been going on?” he asked. Sherlock could tell he was using his doctor tone and was perversely grateful for it.

“Four nights,” he said, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Not how long since you’ve slept, although that’s. Yeah. That’s not good, Sherlock. How long have you had the insomnia? The tendency, I mean, not this specific bout.”

Sherlock almost laughed, but didn’t quite manage it. At least he felt a bit more like himself, talking to John. He waved a hand airily. “My sleep habits have never been precisely what one would call  _normal_ , John.”

John wasn’t going to let him wave this one aside, though. “But it bothers you.”

“Of course it bothers me,” Sherlock snapped, “it feels—“ he stopped himself, not even sure how he’d choose to end that sentence if he could. John was looking at him with understanding.

“I saw this a lot, you know. In Afghanistan. Not just the new arrivals, though they had it the worst.” He indicated the empty mugs on the table at Sherlock’s elbow. “I’m going to go ahead and  _deduce”—_ John always said that word with a curl of irony in his voice, it drove Sherlock mad—“that this isn’t normal insomnia, since one doesn’t usually, ah,  _abet_ insomnia to quite this degree. You’re inducing it deliberately. Am I right? And not an experiment, or it wouldn’t be upsetting you.” He waved the needle, the point glinting in the light from the lamp. “You wouldn’t be doing  _this_ , either. Where in the hell did you get—? Don’t answer that. Right. Okay.” John took a deep breath. “So. That’s it, then. Sleep scares you.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Good deduction,  _doctor_ ,” he said quietly, trying to ignore the shameful flush he could feel spreading over his cheeks.

John put the needle down carefully on the coffee table. “All sorts of people have phobias, Sherlock,” he said mildly. “I’ve got one myself.” Sherlock quirked his eyebrow in question. “Fish. Just live ones, not in restaurants. I know. It’s… they’re cold and scaly, and… well, it’s a  _phobia_ , it isn’t supposed to make sense.”

“I know it’s not—“ Sherlock began.

“Shut up,” John interrupted. “The point is, lots of people have them. It’s really not unusual. You, of course,” he continued with a hint of amusement in his voice, “couldn’t have a nice avoidable one like heights or spiders or  _fish_ , though, could you. Not nearly  _clever_ enough to make it that easy on yourself. Your body needs sleep, Sherlock, it can’t be easy—“

“Don’t,” Sherlock broke in. “Don’t you dare pity me. I didn’t ask you to—“

“Shut. Up. I’m not  _pitying_ you, I’m telling you that, phobia or not, narcotics are  _not on_. Okay? As your doctor, and as the one who’d end up getting arrested with you if Lestrade actually found them in the flat.” John yawned and stood up, grabbing the syringe and padding to the kitchen to empty its contents into the drain. He set down the empty needle and looked at Sherlock expectantly. “Upstairs, then. Come on.”

Sherlock cocked his head, confused. Everything seemed a bit too bright, and he had to admit that he really  _did_ need some rest.

“You’ll have associations with your bed,” John explained, patiently, “but not with mine. I’m awake enough now I’ll stay up and keep an eye on you, if that helps.”

“It… might,” Sherlock said slowly. “John, we’ve talked about—“

“Just to sleep, Sherlock. It’s Friday, I don’t have to go in to Bart’s tomorrow, and I’ve a backlog of medical journals I’ve been meaning to get to, in any case.” John started up the stairs, not looking behind him, and Sherlock found himself following.

It really was a comfortable bed, and Sherlock found himself suppressing a smile as he let his head sink into the pillow. John was sitting at his desk, flipping through the journal he’d grabbed off the top of the pile. He didn’t look at Sherlock when he spoke, trying to give him at least a semblance of privacy despite sitting just an arm’s-distance away.

“Your brain doesn’t just shut off when you sleep, you know,” John was saying. “It’s actually quite busy, processing and storing information.”

“How did you—“ Sherlock began.

“I didn't know, I  _observed,”_ John said wryly. “And I know you.”

“Mmm.” Sherlock allowed his eyes to close. “Fish, John? Really?”

“Yes. Well. Your phobia is not my phobia, and all that. And, Sherlock… I meant it about the morphine. No more of that.”

“No.”

“We’ll figure out a way to manage it. Come up with a plan. Tomorrow.”

“Mmm.” Sherlock felt a steady hand on his shoulder. He focused on the warm weight of it and hardly even noticed as he slipped into sleep.


End file.
